(CNN) – Nearly three decades ago, Richard Hays, a minister in the United Methodist Church and the next dean of Duke Divinity School, wrote what quickly became the standard-bearing traditionalist Christian argument against same-sex marriage.
Now, Hays says he’s changed his mind.
In a radical turn, one of the most prominent and influential New Testament scholars of the last century apologizes for his previous stance, writing in a new book, “The Widening of God’s Mercy” (“The Expanse of God’s Mercy”), which feels “deeply” the pain caused to LGBTQ people who have been excluded from Christian churches.
“I want to regret what I wrote before,” Richard Hays told me in an interview with his son and co-author, Christopher Hays. “My current position on the issue is that Scripture, read as narrative, offers a vision of a dynamic and personal God, who can constantly surprise us by reshaping what we thought we knew as settled matters.”
“It was, I thought, the right thing to say to put myself at peace with God and with my brothers and sisters in the Church,” Hays said of his change of heart. “The entire story of the Bible, I believe, regularly calls us all to the practice of repentance.”
For nearly three decades, Hays’s landmark analysis of homosexuality in his 1996 book, “The Moral Vision of the New Testament”, (“The Moral Vision of the New Testament”), has been cited in evangelical seminars and traditionalist studies throughout the country. And, as a gay Christian, I have lost count of how many times I have read your chapter on homosexuality, or had it pointed out to me by pastors and church leaders, in the 12 years since I revealed my homosexuality.
Now, Hays says he regrets how he believes some Christians used his work to marginalize and exclude LGBTQ people from the Christian church. “That stance has been, I would say, used as a weapon, I don’t think that’s too strong a word, by people on the conservative side of the evangelical churches who use it as ammunition to act in what I suppose are rightly described as oppressive ways. towards gays and lesbians.”
As a pastor’s son from the suburbs of Grand Rapids, Michigan, the church was like a second home to me growing up. He played the piano at church services, acted out characters during Vacation Bible School in the summers, and changed the frozen letters on the church sign in snowy Michigan winters.
But little by little I discovered that I was gay, a terrifying and shocking revelation that I believed threatened to collapse my entire world.
My faith and my church mattered to me. I graduated from a religious university. I began my journalistic career in our church magazine. I immersed myself in the story of God’s creation, fall, and redemption for all people and the world. God’s love and grace toward me was, and continues to be, fundamental to how I view who I am. But being gay seemed to put all that in jeopardy.
Unlike other progressive arguments that try to unravel the six most well-known Bible passages that appear to condemn same-sex intimacy, Hays and his son take a very different approach.
“We need to read the Bible as a narrative, and take its stories as formative of our character and our role as readers and interpreters of the text,” Richard Hays told me. “We have to take a step back and say: why is this particular prohibition taken as normative, but other passages, including those that describe what to do when owning slaves, are disregarded?”
“My exegesis of those half-dozen passages has not changed. “I think the Bible says what it says, and it disapproves of gay sex, period,” Hays told me. “But there is a very arbitrary selectivity in choosing those two verses from Leviticus as the basis for an opinion on this topic.”
Hays said several things led him to reconsider his views on same-sex marriage. A key factor was the vision of a dynamic God who is willing to change His mind and expand God’s grace to include more and more people. He stated that this was supported by his own real-life experiences with LGBTQ believers who demonstrated the attributes of people living in accordance with the Spirit.
Christopher Hays, Richard’s son and co-author, who is a professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, agreed.
“We have a very strong argument in the Bible, like in Isaiah 43, where God says, ‘Look, I’m doing something new. Don’t you perceive it?’ And so the question is constantly raised of whether people can keep up with the new things that God is doing,” he said. “You keep reading the Bible and you say, actually, this is not the story that I see of who God is and what God wants.”
Christopher also said he believes the authors of the Bible did not have current same-sex relationships in mind when they wrote the Scriptures. “We don’t think that’s the same as what Paul meant or what the authors of the Torah meant in the laws,” he said.
“I’m proud of my father,” Christopher added. “I feel like his heart has always been kinder, softer and gentler than how he took that chapter. So I’m proud of him for being a model for people out there on how they can change their minds gracefully.”
Hays’ surprising change of stance has drawn harsh criticism from conservatives. The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Al Mohler, qualified of “total doctrinal revolt” and “call for complete theological surrender.” Conservative academic Robert Gagnon said that Hays had “fallen into heresy,” calling his argument “nonsense.”
The more moderate traditionalist academic Preston Sprinkle, who directs the Center for Faith, Sexuality and Gender, wrote: “The fundamental theological and ethical question in this debate is whether sex difference is an essential part of what marriage is. This question is never mentioned, much less answered, in ‘The Widening of God’s Mercy.'”
But Christopher Hays rejects the criticism. “I think they are right to worry about the book if they want to maintain power the way they have,” he said. “It’s not written for Preston Sprinkle and the people who are in this fight all the time,” he continued. “It is a much more basic and fundamental book.”
Progressive Christians, like Matthew Vines, who runs a pro-LGBTQ Christian advocacy group called the Reformation Project, applauded Hays’ change of heart.
“I am deeply grateful that Richard Hays not only changed his mind, but decided to write about it publicly despite the backlash he knew it would generate,” he told CNN. “I am delighted that he is now lending his voice to the cause of LGBTQ inclusion in the Church.”
As a member of the Christian Reformed Church of North America, a small Protestant denomination with a quarter-million members spread across the United States and Canada, I am well aware of my church’s teaching that being attracted to the same sex is not a sin, but that Intimate same-sex relationships are. After coming to terms with my homosexuality as a student at my church’s college, I went through periods of depression as I struggled with that position for several years.
But, over time, also I convinced myself that God and Scripture accept same-sex marriage, ultimately, because I believe that God’s redemptive work directs the institution of marriage toward our identities in Christ in a new way that fulfills, rather than simply reiterates, God’s work in creation.
My institutional church, however, has taken a different approach. Our annual meeting recently voted to enshrine our church’s opposition to same-sex marriage as denominational, requiring not only its compliance, but the conscientious agreement of all pastors, elders, deacons and members. My father, a pastor and member for six decades, left the synod in protest.
Fuller Theological Seminary, where Christopher Hays is a professor, also requires agreement with a statement of faith opposing same-sex marriage. A senior official was fired from the school in February after refusing to sign the declaration, according to Religion News Service.
“I’m not worried about my job right now,” Christopher told me. “I wanted to write this book to make sure there was room for conversation in the places where I am and in all the places in the country where similar conversations are happening.”
Fuller said in a statement that the book represents the views of the author, not the position of the seminary. “Fuller has always approached difficult topics thoughtfully and faithfully, and we will continue to do so,” said seminary president David Emmanuel Goatley.
Other religious groups have gone even further: the Southern Baptist Convention and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) have condemned merely identifying with a homosexual orientation, even if one remains single. The PCA expelled to celibate gay pastor Greg Johnson and his Saint Louis church two years ago. The SBC has also expelled multiple LGBTQ-affirming churches in recent years.
But demographic trends are about to reach a point of collision with young people who attend churches. Although support for same-sex marriage has stagnated In recent years, according to recent Gallup polls, more than one in five Gen Z Americans identify as part of the LGBTQ community, and nearly 90% of Americans under the age of 30 support same-sex marriage. .
Ultimately, I am deeply grateful that my own fears of being rejected by my closest friends and family did not come true, even though I know others have faced that and worse. I and many of my closest friends, who love both God and LGBTQ people, are trying to navigate that push and pull, even as the most formative Christian institutions in my life keep me at arm’s length.
Hays’ change of heart certainly won’t settle the debate among Christians when it comes to same-sex marriage. But I hope it makes those who oppose same-sex marriage at least stop and ask themselves: Is there a path within religion that accommodates people like me?
As for Richard Hays, he says he hopes Christians who have read his previous book approach his new work with an open mind. “I just hope people don’t make premature judgments,” he said. “I hope that people who are shocked by this book actually read it.”
